Cisco’s 2013 Annual Security Report (ASR) in Middle East and Africa reveals that the highest concentration of online security threats come from legitimate destinations visited by mass audiences, such as major search engines, retail sites and social media outlets. Security risks in businesses are also on the rise because many employees adopt “my way” work lifestyles in which their devices, work and online behavior mix with their personal lives virtually anywhere —in the office, at home and everywhere in between.
The increasing level of security threats has not gone unnoticed among consumers in the Middle East region. A survey conducted by Cisco in the Middle East revealed that a third of consumers in the region are concerned about the vulnerability of their online information and personal data as well as the possibility of identity theft. As a result, a surprising number of users (50 percent) prefer that their online browsing be kept strictly private and have high expectations that websites will keep their information confidential. However, there are concerns that in today’s internet era that the age of privacy is over. Over three quarters of respondent’s fear that they are no longer in control of their data online and are worried about how much personal data is being captured and how it is stored.
As more people, things and devices connect to the Internet, more data from more places will be introduced across corporate and service provider networks, which open up new vulnerabilities and a need for more sophisticated security approaches. New connections generate data in motion that needs to be protected in real time as it is evaluated for actionable insights through the network and before it’s compromised and causes irreparable damages. For network security professionals, the focus becomes content-neutral plumbing — shifting from the endpoint and the periphery to the network.
